A few nights ago I wrote this:
Lately I seem to be wrestling with everything.
I have the “you’re not good enough” voice constantly. I hear it when I tell one child they must wait on me to finish with the others. I hear it when I go to write about my children and realize I haven’t taken any pictures in weeks. I hear it when we celebrate birthday after birthday in this busy Spring season for us. “Where did the time go? You’re letting it pass you by.” Every time I sit down to relax for a few minutes at the computer between lessons and while nursing the baby “You could turn around and actually look at your children instead of letting them see the back of your head. Again.” I loathe that voice. And it gets me wondering, is it me? My conscience? Satan? I don’t know. I know that it gets louder at night when all the other noises drift off to sleep. I know that I have to read, pray, talk myself down from all the “You are failing at this mothering thing” thoughts.
When people used to ask me how I do it, I was decently confident in my answers. Four kids for me wasn’t much different than two. I could juggle, streamline, and multitask with the best of them. But my house of cards came crumbling with my fifth child. The pregnancy alone took me out of the game. I was just so sick. (And there’s more of that guilt – I have really had easy healthy pregnancies, what on earth am I complaining about?) But I feel like I missed 9 months of my other four children’s lives. As I attempted to still go on all those field trips and adventure days with them, all I could think is, I’m just not up to par. And then the swine flu hit the outside world. And we didn’t go anywhere. Really. Stayed home more than I want to admit. The end of the pregnancy I was really struggling just to walk, much less be the creative teacher I had once been. As my children asked to go and do I heard the whispering again “When will you be what you once were?” And I worried. I promised it would change soon. Then my sweet baby boy was born and we adored him. Everybody couldn’t get enough of him. We were going to hit the ground running like we had after the other babies. But not so much this time. That H1N1 was kicking back up with a vengence and we had a newborn going into the winter months. We stayed home some more. And made more promises.
I’ve lost so much of my sense of humor. I feel under the microscope in public. I feel like it’s harder to laugh at our circus when so many are scrutinizing our every move. I’m so unsure. Of everything.
I don’t know how to let everybody sit with me at the same time. And then worry about the oldest as he asks less often to be right beside me - is it because he’s getting older and that’s the natural order of things or does he feel responsible as the oldest to let the youngers sit with me, or has he picked up something from me that says he should not ask? I don’t know. But I wrestle with it.
I worry about the amount of schoolwork we’re doing. Is eclectic still cutting it? Should I change to a set curriculum? Would it help my confidence?
I stress over the fact that time is flying. I saw a friend whose oldest child is turning 13 say, “Where did 13 years go??? I only have 5 years left to Tell her…” And it stops me in my tracks. How much time do I have left to tell them? Am I doing enough? Am I telling them enough? I struggle some more. And I feel weary. Like the fight is taking so much out of me.
In the back of my mind I feel like I know the answer. At least part of it. I feel like with enough faith, enough to just say, “I can’t do this. I cannot possibly do this – figure out schedules, spend the right amount of time with each child (and does anybody know that exact number?), and quit living in fear” would settle my mind.
I don’t know. I feel like my confident “how I do what I do” part of me is unsure of everything.
And I hate uncertainty.
But I sat on it. Because, really, you don’t want to read one more whiny, “What’s wrong with me?” post. But I find when I’m not real, when I don’t say what’s really going on in my head, that I have much less to say about everything. And my attempts to write anything just fall flat. And then this morning a friend linked up this post at Holy Experience asking “What in the world is wrong with me, that’s right with everyone else?” And it made me cry. Cry with a feeling of I’m not the only one, cry with recognition, cry with conviction, and cry for a second chance (one billionth chance?) at redemption. She shined a light on my struggling and showed a way to silence those same whisperings. Now to allow myself the indulgence of forgiveness.
